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Jeff RoweJeffrey Rowe has more than 40 years of experience in all aspects of industrial design, mechanical engineering, and manufacturing. On the publishing side, he has written well over 1,000 articles for CAD, CAM, CAE, and other technical publications, as well as consulting in many capacities in the design community. As editor of MCADCafe, Jeff brings extensive hands-on experience with many design and production software products, and bases his commentary on these products and services as a true end user, and not baseless marketing hype. He can be reached at 719.221.1867 or jrowe@cairowest.com. « Less

Jeff RoweJeffrey Rowe has more than 40 years of experience in all aspects of industrial design, mechanical engineering, and manufacturing. On the publishing side, he has written well over 1,000 articles for CAD, CAM, CAE, and other technical publications, as well as consulting in many capacities in the … More »

For as long as I can remember, cloud storage and computing have offered two things – endless (unrealistic) promises and perpetual (unrealistic) growth. For some time that was true, but several things have occurred in the past couple of years that temper those claims and portend what may happen in the future for technology providers that become increasingly reliant on the cloud – reliability, accessibility, and security.

Cloud computing, or internet-based computing provide shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand. From the beginning, it was intended as a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort.

Proponents have always claimed that cloud computing allows companies to avoid upfront infrastructure costs, and focus on projects that differentiate their businesses instead of on infrastructure. Proponents have also claimed that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and enables IT to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand. Cloud providers typically use a “pay as you go” model. This can lead to unexpectedly high charges if administrators do not adapt to the cloud pricing model. Even so, the potential for premium MCAD with minimal computing hardware cost make the prospect attractive and compelling.

To a large extent most of these claims have proven true, and I have been a proponent for many aspects of cloud computing, but there is also a downside – generally, you just don’t need as many people to run and maintain a cloud-based organization.

With 2017 winding down and the holidays upon us, MCAD news typically slows down big time. Not so this year, though, as two 3D printing manufacturers – Desktop Metal and Carbon – announced big news this week.

Desktop Metal Shipping Studio System

Just eight months after its initial introduction, Desktop Metal announced it has begun shipping its metal 3D printer to early pioneer customers as part of the Studio System rollout.

The Studio System, which debuted in May, is the first office-friendly metal 3D printing system for rapid prototyping and is 10 times less expensive than existing technology today. The Studio System is a complete platform, including a printer, a debinder, and a sintering furnace that, together, deliver metal 3D printed parts in an office or on the shop floor.

Participating in Desktop Metal’s Pioneers Program, Google’s Advanced Technology and Products (ATAP) group is the first pioneer to receive the Studio printer. Among the inaugural Pioneer customers in the program, companies span six industries – heavy machinery, consumer electronics, automotive, service bureaus, machine shops and government & education. Benchmark parts range from tooling, prototyping and jigs & fixtures, to end-use parts for functional applications.

Desktop Metal’s 3D Printer (video courtesy of TechCrunch)

“Since the launch of our Pioneers Program, we have seen really passionate engineers and world-class companies begin to develop benchmark metal 3D printed parts with the Studio System,” said Ric Fulop, CEO and co-founder of Desktop Metal. “We are extremely excited to begin shipping our Studio printer to these early pioneer customers and sales partners, including Google’s ATAP, and, over the next several months, will be working closely with each to learn more about how engineers want to use our system.”

Grant is the celebrity engineer spokesperson for Mouser Electronics, the leading global New Product Introduction (NPI) distributor. Grant is an electrical engineer, roboticist, and television host. He is best known for his work on the television series MythBusters, where he designed and built numerous robots and specialized in operating the various computers and electronics that were utilized to objectively test myths. More recently, Grant has partnered with Mouser Electronics in launching its Empowering Innovation Together program, where he hosts webisodes and contributes blog posts and articles.

Grant visited our EDACafe exhibition booth at Arm TechCon for an interesting interview that covered many topics, including his relationship with Mouser Electronics.

Interview with Grant Imahara at Arm TechCon 2017

EDACafe: Can you discuss your relationship with Mouser Electronics and what you do with the company?

Grant I: I am Mouser’s celebrity engineer spokesman, which is kind of funny because generally speaking, engineers are not the rock stars and don’t often get the recognition we deserve for all the amazing things that we do. Mouser said, “Let’s take a person who is a known face from TV, who is also an engineer and make them our spokesperson.” So, here I am.

If you think there are a lot of industrial robots out there, you’re right. But, by 2019, more than 1.4 million new industrial robots will be installed in factories around the world – that’s the latest forecast from a report published by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).

The number of industrial robots deployed worldwide will increase to around 2.6 million units by 2019. That’s about one million units more than in the record-breaking year of 2015.

Broken down according to sectors, around 70 percent of industrial robots are currently at work in the automotive, electrical/electronics and metal and machinery industry segments. In 2015, the strongest growth in the number of operational units recorded was registered in the electronics industry, which boasted a rise of 18 percent. The metal industry posted an increase of 16 percent, with the automotive sector growing by 10 percent.

New Technology Enhances Industrial Robots

The US is currently the fourth largest single market for industrial robots in the world. Within the NAFTA area (US, Canada, and Mexico), the total number of newly installed industrial robots rose by 17 percent to a new record of some 36,000 units (2015). The leader of the pack was the US, accounting for three-quarters of all units sold where 5 percent growth was recorded. With a comparatively much smaller number of units, the demand in Canada increased by 49 percent (5,466 units), while that in Mexico grew by 119 percent (3,474 units). With a stable economic situation, it is expected that North America will see average annual growth of 5 to 10 percent in sales of robots through 2019.

One of the most interesting, but mysterious and most misunderstood technologies in the digital realm are blockchain and bitcoin. Blockchain, specifically, is also the technology with the greatest potential to secure data and transactions that demand trust. Although they are related, separately and together they require quite a bit of space to adequately explain, so this time around, I’ll focus on a few aspects of blockchain and their possible implications for manufacturing.

Blockchain combines the openness of the Internet (unless/until Net Neutrality goes away) with the security of cryptography to give companies a faster way to verify vital information and establish trust without the need for third parties and other intermediaries. It was initially developed more than a decade ago to provide the technical underpinnings for Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency with which it is sometimes mistaken. As Pat Bakey, president of SAP Industries, noted, “Early horror stories about bitcoin, the most famous digital currency to use blockchain, prompted its mainstream dismissal as a dubious tool of the dark web.”

At its core however, blockchain is simply an open and secure method of recording transactions, just like a traditional ledger. Because blockchains establish trust, they provide a simple, paperless way to establish and track ownership of money, information, and objects by individuals, companies, and other organizations.

Blockchain: What’s In It For Manufacturers?

“The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value,” wrote Don and Alex Tapscott in their book, Blockchain Revolution.

It’s almost the end of November, so with just over a month left of this year, it’s not too early to start thinking about what we’ll be covering in 2018. The calendar below reflects what we regard as some of the most important topics today in design and manufacturing, as well as feedback from our readers and other supporters requesting content.

The main theme for each month will be covered in an extended article or series of articles so that the topic can be covered more comprehensively.

We’ll also be covering some of the major MCAD events throughout the year, reporting what we see and hear from vendors, partners, and attendees. All of the events we attend will include daily written coverage and Tweets throughout event days, as well as video and audio interviews, and podcasts.

If you have any thoughts of topics you would like to see covered in 2018, feel free to contact me at jeff@ibsystems.com or 719.221.1867.

We look forward to an exciting 2018 and providing you with the MCAD content you want most for improving your design, engineering, and manufacturing processes.

Keep MCADCafe.com your source for all things MCAD because 2018 is going to be a great year!

Although I’m not much of a fan for Las Vegas per se, I do enjoy attending Autodesk’s annual spectacle that attracts at least 10,000 attendees to Sin City — Autodesk University.

This year’s event was markedly different than ones in the recent past. Different because:

This was the first AU presided over by Autodesk’s new President and CEO, Andrew Anagnost

The attention the Forge development platform received

AEC and construction seemed to take center stage for much of the event and the exhibit floor

Generative design and Fusion 360 were emphasized on the manufacturing side of the business

The Internet of Things (IoT) is getting a lot of attention fro Autodesk and will be coming out of the shadows very soon

The “cloud” was everywhere, including the addition of AnyCAD into Fusion 360

I’ll briefly discuss each of these bulleted items, but will cover each of them in more detail in coming weeks

Words From The New CEO

Having been the President and CEO of Autodesk since June, Andrew Anagnost took the stage the first day of AU in his relatively new role to talk about the theme of this year’s AU, which was designing more things, designing better things, and accomplishing this with less — materials, staff, resources, and time.

Andrew Anagnost, AU 2017 Keynote

Anagnost said the panacea for making this happen is automation that will actually increase jobs and productivity. We shouldn’t be so concerned about if automation take our jobs as we should be of the opportunities of where automation will take us. With so much happening so quickly on the automation and technology fronts, the problem is not so much a scarcity of jobs as it is a scarcity of skills to benefit from the opportunities.

An interesting numerical comparison he made that back in the day there were approximately 300,000 drafters in design, manufacturing, and architecture. Compare that to today’s approximately 10,000,000 design software users and you appreciate how things have changed by the sheer number of people involved on the creative design side.

This week Autodesk also announced that it has formed a new partnership with Village Capital to fund the creation of their workforce development and transition initiative, focused on entrepreneurship, job training, and upskilling in a world of automation. The company is also teaming up with LinkedIn Learning to offer free access to more than 40 courses in multiple languages, relevant to the architecture, infrastructure, construction, and manufacturing industries.

Technology can accelerate solutions to our most pressing problems, such as anticipated global population growth of 30 percent by 2050, but only if people are prepared work with machines in new ways. These are the latest moves in Autodesk’s efforts to prepare the workforce to thrive in a future that will require people to make and build more, do it better, and with less negative impact on the world.

Like many small- and medium-size businesses contemplating a PDM system, L&H Design Werks wondered what PDM could do for them. The Coopersville, Michigan-based company designs customized production machines, but also designs fixturing, and robotic cells, with experience in welding, metal forming, automotive glass and high-speed material handling applications. L&H has also done a considerable amount of conceptual design. All these capabilities demand that design and associated data be managed with a secure PDM system that can be accessed by those needing the data. It was secure data management and access that prompted L&H to make the decision to implement a PDM system in the first place.

Since 2005, L&H Design Werks has been using SOLIDWORKS as its primary design tool, largely because it perceived its industry moving toward it, and they saw SOLIDWORKS as being a more flexible a tool than some of the other CAD packages they had evaluated.

After the CAD tool was in place, what prompted L&H Design Werks to consider PDM in the first place? According to Brian Land, CEO of L&H Design Werks, “We wanted to be able to have more than one person work on a project/design at a time. We started with SOLIDWORKS PDM Workgroup because it was relatively inexpensive and fairly straightforward to use. We started using it right away with our first purchase of SOLIDWORKS.”

The Move to Kenesto PDM

While L&H was satisfied with SOLIDWORKS PDM Workgroup for a while, it started to look for alternatives because SOLIDWORKS decided to no longer offer Workgroup PDM and wanted the company to move to SOLIDWORKS PDM Enterprise. “Because we are not very large, we like to keep things basic. I felt Enterprise had more bells and whistles than we needed. We like the keep it simple, stupid (KISS) approach,” said Land.

“Also, one of our customers wanted to be able to easily access our CAD files. That way if they made changes on the floor it was immediately updated, so that we saw the changes as soon as they did. I also knew that cloud-based storage seemed to make the most sense moving forward for safety in knowing it’s always backed up. That’s when we seriously looked at Kenesto as an alternative and replacement, and have been using it for the past several months. We have been putting some of our older projects up to Kenesto and put all new projects there.”

Land said, overall, his experience with Kenesto has exceeded his expectations. “The people I have dealt with at Kenesto are all excellent, going above and beyond to help us out. We had some problems in the beginning that were a result of some of our equipment and setup, and they helped us to get in the right direction and it’s made a big difference. There have been some glitches from time to time, but most of those problematic issues are related to SOLIDWORKS, and not Kenesto.”

It seems that everybody wants in on the action in the various “realities” game. Case in point — Theorem Solutions, a company known largely for its product data interoperability and PLM has launched a Multi-Device Visualization Experience App for Augmented (AR), Mixed (MR), and Virtual Reality (VR) devices and markets.

Traditionally, Theorem’s products and solutions have enabled companies to leverage their CAD and PLM assets in other parts of their business, primarily in data sharing with downstream processes and suppliers, and now in the emerging Augmented, Mixed, and Virtual Reality sectors.

The Visualization Experience app forms part of Theorem’s Digital Realities product family, and has been specifically developed for users to engage and interact with their Engineering and Manufacturing data. It is one of the first to offer a single solution for all three different technologies in a single application.

What are Virtual and Augmented Realities?

The Multi-Device application is a single application built from the ground up using the latest graphics gaming engine, producing stunning graphical representations of your data, which is a real game changer to the world of traditional CAD graphics and visualization.

Supported devices include:

Augmented Reality – Windows 10 and Android Tablets and Phones

Mixed Reality – Microsoft HoloLens

Virtual Reality – HTC Vive and Oculus Rift

Being Multi-Device, the application allows users to use the same data, in the same visualization application, on all the different low-cost devices.

This week NVIDIA unveiled what it claims to be the world’s first artificial intelligence computer designed specifically to “drive” fully autonomous vehicles.

The new system, codenamed Pegasus, brings the NVIDIA® DRIVE™ PX AI computing platform for handling Level 5 driverless vehicles (Level 5 is ”steering wheel optional.” In other words, no human intervention is required, for example, a robotic taxi). NVIDIA DRIVE PX Pegasus can perform over 320 trillion operations per second — more than 10x the performance of its predecessor, NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2.

NVIDIA DRIVE PX Pegasus is intended to help make a new class of vehicles possible that can operate without a driver — fully autonomous vehicles without steering wheels, pedals, or mirrors, and interiors that feel more like a living room or office than a vehicle. They will arrive on demand to safely take passengers to their destinations, bringing mobility to everyone, including the elderly and disabled.

One of the driving forces behind autonomous vehicles is to recapture millions of hours of lost time that could be used by “drivers” (really passengers) to work, play, eat or sleep on their daily commutes. Theoretically, countless lives could be saved by vehicles that are never fatigued, impaired, or distracted — increasing road safety, reducing congestion, and possibly freeing up land currently used for parking lots.

Of the 225 partners developing on the NVIDIA DRIVE PX platform, more than 25 are developing fully autonomous robotaxis using NVIDIA CUDA GPUs. Today, their trunks resemble small data centers, loaded with racks of computers with server-class NVIDIA GPUs running deep learning, computer vision and parallel computing algorithms. Their size, power demands and cost make them impractical for production vehicles.

NVIDIA AI Vehicle Demonstration

The computational requirements of robotaxis are enormous — perceiving the world through high-resolution, 360-degree surround cameras and lidars, localizing the vehicle within centimeter accuracy, tracking vehicles and people around the car, and planning a safe and comfortable path to the destination. All this processing must be done with multiple levels of redundancy to ensure the highest level of safety. The computing demands of driverless vehicles are easily 50 to 100 times more intensive than the most advanced cars today with human drivers.